Chris Forsberg has an article on ESPN about the Jersey numbers for this upcoming season. Jermaine O'Neal wore number 7 in Indiana and in Miami. JO's former Pacers teammate, Marquis Daniels, wore #7 last season. O'Neal will be the 18th player in Celtics' history to wear #7, including such notables as Ernie DiGregorio, Kenny Anderson, Tiny Archibald, Dee Brown and Big Al.

Marquis is switching to #8 for this upcoming season, allowing JO to have his preferred number. 10 other Celtics have worn #8 including Scott Wedman, Antoine Walker, Big Al and Stephon Marbury. It appears that Avery Bradley will wear #0, joining Eric Montross, Walter McCarty, Orien Greene, and Leon Powe as the 5 Celtics to sport #0. Luke Harangody becomes the 7th player to choose #55 following Acie Earl, Eric Williams, John Thomas, Zan Tabak, Dwayne Schintzius and Wally Szczerbiak who wore it before him.

Semih Erden will be wearing #50 which has been worn by Greg Kite, Matt Wenstrom, Theo Ratliff, and Eddie House before him. Von Wafer is expected to claim #13, which has been worn by 15 other Celtics including Todd Day, Delonte West, Dana Barros, and most recently, Shelden Williams.

Just read that Heat forward Udonis Haslem was arrested for possession of marijuana. Gee, they dumped Beasley because of his history with drugs and now there is trouble in paradise again. It may not be very nice of me but I get a certain degree of satisfaction from seeing trouble for the Heat. That being said, it seems kind of fishy the way this went down. According to TMZ, Haslem was pulled over for having his window tint too dark. The police then searched the car three times. The first two times (including once with drug dogs) they found nothing. The third time they came up with the pot. Why search a third time when the dog found nothing? Just seems odd. Haslem's attorney has said that all the pot belonged to a passenger. Sure. We believe you.

So much for Larry Bird's vow to concentrate on players with good character. Their second round pick, Lance Stephenson, was arrested for assaulting his girlfriend and pushing her down the stairs of her apartment building at around 5 am. I have to feel bad for Larry. He just can't seem to find success as GM. But then again, if he did his homework, he would have found that Stephenson was arrested in 2008 for groping a classmate. Not exactly the high character type players he said he was bringing in.

I enjoyed watching Team USA beat France on Sunday. It felt good to watch basketball again. Rondo got the start for the second game in a row as he started against both China and France. It would appear that his spot on the team is fairly certain. If I had a guess, I would say that the final cut will come down to Stephon Curry, Eric Gordon or Russell Westbrook. Rondo looked good against France. He had one of his patented behind the back fakes and went in for an uncontested layup. He also had another nice alley oop to Tyson Chandler. He finished with 6 points on 3-4 shooting, 2 rebounds, 6 assists and 3 turnovers in 18 minutes of play.

Andre Iguodala was looking for Rondo on Twitter after the game as it seems that he isn't too fond of Rondo's nickname for him. Don't call him Iggy... Too funny! I've also had to chuckle reading quotes from Kevin Durant talking about Rondo mentoring him. At 25, Rondo is one of the old guys on the team and has been a leader. He was joking that he thought he was young, but some of the other guys on the team are still using fake ID's. The team seems to have some good chemistry. I'm just hoping that if any recruiting is going on here, it will be Rondo enlisting players to come to Boston and not the other way around.

Speaking of chemistry, it seems as though ubuntu is alive and well among the current crop of Celtics. Little things mean alot between teammates. Like KG coming in from his vacation in Hawaii to be there for Shaq's press conference. Or like Rondo calling Perk a warrior and reporting that he is handling his rehab like a professional. Or like Marquis switching numbers so that Jermaine O'Neal could have the number he wanted. Or like Big Baby and Nate challenging each other to a Dougie contest and the good natured ribbing that has been going on between them. It takes work to be a good teammate and it appears that the Celtics are willing to put that work in.

I can't remember another off season where so many players changed teams. It's going to be confusing at first with all the players on different teams. Should be an interesting season with all the new faces on teams. I know one thing. The East is definitely going to be a lot tougher than the West. A lot of big names defected from the West to the East. This could work two ways. Either the Eastern Champs will be beat up when they get to the Finals against a fairly unscathed Western Champ, or they will be toughened up by the competition in the East against the Western Champ who waltzed to the Finals. I can't wait for the season to start. In the meantime, it's fun to watch Rondo competing on Team USA.